Salmon farmers find sockeye report ‘quite balanced’

Farm fish spokesman confident more research will vindicate their operations

The Cohen Commission report released this week recommends exploring the connection between fish farms and reduced sockeye salmon stocks.

Salmon farmers are mostly pleased with this week’s Cohen Commission report on the reasons behind the decline of Fraser River sockeye, including recommendations to explore a connection between fish farms and missing fish.

Clare Backman of Marine Harvest, speaking for the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said Thursday that they support former B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen’s recommendation that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans conduct more intensive research — particularly at fish farms around the Discovery Islands north of Campbell River.

That area is one of the original salmon farming locations in British Columbia and is also a primary migration route for both juvenile and adult Fraser River sockeye.

Backman said there are nine Atlantic salmon farms operating there at present, although most industry maps show about 30 site locations, which are mostly “dormant.”

Cohen suggested in a 1,200-page report released Wednesday that farms in the area “have the potential to introduce exotic diseases and to exacerbate endemic diseases which can have a negative effect on Fraser River sockeye.”

He said the Fraser sockeye could suffer “serious or irreversible harm” if exposed to disease and that DFO needs to recognize the possible risk of disease transfer between wild and farm fish.

However he declined to quantify the scale of risk, saying it “requires further study.”

As a result, he’s recommending that the DFO undertake a decisive study of the risks to wild salmon from Discovery Islands fish farming operations, with conclusive results by 2020, as well as an annual cap on salmon production. If by that year the DFO “cannot confidently say the risk of serious harm is minimal,” then the area should be closed to salmon farming, Cohen said. That should happen sooner if research confirms a link, he added.

One of the keys to an analysis of the risks is making all farm fish health assessments available for public scrutiny and independent research.

Backman noted that the assessment data suggested by Cohen has been available since B.C. ceded regulation of fish farms to the federal government in 2010.

“Our migration over to the new federal regulator has just immensely increased the amount of information that goes up on the DFO website,” Backman said.

“They’re collecting a variety of information. It used to go into the provincial databases and then they would provide a summary report that was always a year late. Now the DFO puts it up on the website within the quarter. So now, within three months you’ve got predator interaction, any escape issues, the sea lice info, any incidental bycatch in the cages.

“The transparency is much more than it used to be. We’re fine with continuing to be even more transparent because, as he said in the report, he couldn’t find any evidence of disease transfer to the sockeye but there’s an overwhelming (public) concern, so he felt that more research needs to be done to bring that to ground.”

Backman said he is not aware of any companies looking to put new farms into the Discovery Islands area.

“The areas that are considered for further development when and if our regulator is willing to consider (expansions or transfers) are far, far further afield. The evolution of siting criteria demands that we choose areas which are deeper water, better currents, further away from shorelines, further away from key areas of recreation or habitat protection.

“If there is a further call to relocate some of the (Discovery Islands) farms, we would not be averse to that.”

He said closing farms would be an “alarming” precedent but believes the industry can show it’s not having an impact on sockeye.

Overall, he added, the Cohen report was “quite balanced.”

David Suzuki Foundation marine biologist John Werring said his organization and others in the Canadian Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CARR) believe it would be more prudent to remove all 30-odd farms along the migratory sockeye route, not just those in the Discovery Islands identified by Cohen.

“It’s a biological pinch point,” Werring said. “Even industry acknowledges that there’s a zone of influence of farms in regards to pathogen and parasite dispersal.

“That extends to about 26 kilometres from a farm. The Johnstone Strait at any point is only about five kilometres across and within the Johnstone Strait there are several farms that are only about five or 10 kilometres apart. So now you’ve got all these overlapping zones of impact on farms. There’s actually 36 from the top of Queen Charlotte Strait down to the bottom of Discovery Passage.”

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